


To Call a Road Trip Life

by redbluezero



Series: Red's SAO Prideweek 2020 Fics [2]
Category: Sword Art Online (Anime & Manga), ソードアート・オンライン - 川原礫 | Sword Art Online - Kawahara Reki
Genre: Camping, Established Relationship, Multi, Polyamory, Road Trips, Stargazing, Web Novel Fanfiction, Web Novel References, prolly shouldve tagged that first oops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:48:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25818346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbluezero/pseuds/redbluezero
Summary: It's been a year or so since their last adventure and life is moving forward peacefully. Since it's summer break, the triad takes a camping trip to Mt. Dodaira to celebrate. Kirito spends the two hour drive thinking about his relationship with Asuna and Sinon from the back seat of the car.
Relationships: Asada Shino | Sinon/Kirigaya Kazuto | Kirito/Yuuki Asuna | Asuna
Series: Red's SAO Prideweek 2020 Fics [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1864996
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15
Collections: SAO Pride Week 2020





	To Call a Road Trip Life

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day two - stargazing.

“Are we there yet?” Kazuto grumbled from the back seat. Despite wearing a tight seatbelt, which Shino had made  _ sure _ of, he managed to sprawl out on top of the camping supplies next to him. Mt. Dodaira was a two hour drive from Shino’s apartment, a stretch of time that was far more boring when not near her or Asuna, so he squirmed.

“No, we are not. Ask that one more time and I will pull over and throw you out of this car,” Shino replied begrudgingly. It was astounding that she was able to deal with Kazuto’s incessant complaints while still keeping a leveled head— and while being behind the wheel, no less. She’d insisted on driving because she didn’t trust her partners to “not crash us into the abyss” and she was already used to driving in rural areas. Though Saitama wasn’t Tohoku, mountains were mountains.

“Can you at least change the music, though? You’ve had the same song looping for  _ forever _ now,” Kazuto continued. He nudged the part of the pop up tent that protruded from the cargo space upward with his left foot.

“Actually, Kirito-kun, these are all different songs. We’re listening to instrumental jazz hits of the seventies,” Asuna explained matter-of-factly. She seemed to be enjoying the tunes, nodding her head along with the beat, which was enough to shut Kazuto up for a moment. He could tolerate songs that sounded the same for her. However, at that moment, he caught a glimpse of Shino’s shit-eating grin in the rearview mirror. That, he could not tolerate.

“Sinon, do you have something to say?” Kazuto asked snippily. He curled himself into a sitting up position and glared at her. She did not glare back, instead keeping her eyes fixed on the road ahead. Her grin grew wider, though.

“No, no, nothing. Just that, well, our girlfriend seems to favor  _ my  _ taste in music, but that’s not important,” Shino replied triumphantly. She then began to hum along to the tinny song that leaked out of the old car radio, almost as if she was trying to silence Kazuto. That  _ really _ threw him over the edge, but he simply sighed. Getting into an argument on their way to a campsite where they’d be spending the night  _ together _ probably wasn’t the best idea. Besides, he knew that she was just teasing. She loved him, after all.

* * *

_ “Love me for the rest of my life!” _

Kazuto hadn’t asked for clarification in the moment. For all he knew, it could’ve been nothing more than an outburst rooted in vulnerability and not her true feelings. So, after mulling over it for some time, he decided that it would be best to never mention them again. That is, until the day of Asuna’s graduation last March.

Shino had pulled the two of them aside during the after party at Dicey Café. For a while, she seemed to be talking exclusively to Asuna; she recounted past experiences and precious memories to the point that Kazuto had felt left out. Just when he was about to make his leave, though, Shino confessed to the older girl. He stopped in his tracks, preparing to fight for his girlfriend, when she confessed to  _ him _ as well.

Obviously, he brought up the desert cave incident (much to Asuna’s shock, as she hadn’t known about it) to make sure that she wasn’t joking. She’d nodded, saying that she’d meant it back then and had since grown even more certain of her feelings for him (she’d made her feelings for the older girl clear with her speech earlier). Then, the couple asked how it was even  _ possible  _ that she liked them  _ both. _ Shino chuckled and admitted that it’d surprised her, too. For so long, she’d kept her heart under lock and key— who knew that, once she broke out of her shell, there was enough love inside to be shared between two people?

She then went on to tell them that, while browsing forums for romantic advice, she’d learned about something called “polyamory”. It wasn’t especially well known in Japan, even within the LGBT+ community, but she’d found a helpful post. She explained that it was when more than two people were in a relationship and all parties involved knew about it, though that was a basic definition. There were many different expressions of polyamory, she said. She then told them that she particularly wished to join their relationship as a partner of equal standing, thus turning the couple into a triad. She was respectful with her request; she’d said that she didn’t want them to feel pressured and that she was fine with just being friends, but that she’d be grateful if they gave it a shot. To that, Asuna replied,

“Well, I guess Kirito-kun and I each have two hands…”

The three of them had been dating ever since.

* * *

“Cut him some slack, Sinonon! I like whatever you guys like, because I love you both,” Asuna chided playfully. She turned her head and looked back at Kazuto, shooting him a sweet smile. It didn’t last for long, however, since her jaw dropped upon seeing him stretched out over the bench seat. He frantically put his index finger in front of his lips, gesturing for her to keep quiet about his contorted position. She let out a weary sigh but otherwise let him be.

“Yeah, Sinon, play nice! There’s no reason to be a jerk. I mean, we’re even doing this for  _ your  _ birthday,” Kazuto then teased. He tugged on his seatbelt, scratching it with his nails. It made a nice sound that was duly interrupted by Shino’s voice.

“My birthday is in February… The eighth day, to be exact. What the hell are you talking about?” she huffed, confused by what she assumed were his usual antics. She still didn’t turn to look at him, but she did scrunch up her face in disdain. Kazuto noticed from the rearview mirror and felt a sudden pang in his chest; he was disappointed in himself for forgetting something as important as one of his partners’ birthdays.

“H-Huh? Is it, now? Could’ve sworn August twenty-first was special for some reason,” he asked, trying to mask his shame. He knew it was a lame excuse but, to be fair, he  _ had  _ been fairly certain of her birthdate. It was why he’d planned the trip when he did— that and because it was during summer break. He felt like he was having déjà vu… 

“If it was my birthday, I wouldn’t be driving…” Shino grumbled. She gave the steering wheel a quick squeeze, taking out her irritation on its leather cover.

“Maybe you saw a news article about the eclipse today. It’s not visible from here in Japan, but it’s happening,” Asuna pointed out, tapping the side of her face in thought. She pulled out her iPhone SE, opened up the Safari app, and typed “solar eclipse 2017” into the search bar. After a second of slow loading, though, her screen flickered and told her that “Safari cannot open the page because your iPhone is not connected to the Internet.” 

“Phooey, I have no service,” Asuna pouted. She poked her phone a few times, as if it would do anything. Kazuto had to chuckle; she was a university student, but she still acted cutesy and immature when she was with him and Shino. He relished in the fact that he got to see that side of her.

“Of course not, there’s never any signal in places with this many trees,” Shino pointed out, snapping him out of his lovey-dovey trance. She was right, though; whenever he glanced upward and out the window, all he saw were trees. Their trunks were much taller and thicker than those from the city. A part of him wanted to feel the satisfaction of chopping one down, like he’d done with… No, Kazuto didn’t want to go down that train of thought.  _ Keep thinking about the trees!  _ While he couldn’t quite see the leaves anymore— the sun had already set— he could still  _ hear _ them. They swayed in the wind, performing their concerto from outside the window. It was beautiful… or something like that.

_ First I feel insecure about not knowing Sinon’s birthday, then I get all soft over Asuna, and now I’m admiring trees? When’d I become such a sap? _

Kazuto rested his right arm over his face and let the other dangle off the seat. He didn’t want to be sappy, he wanted to be the aloof and insensitive protagonist. He  _ liked _ being a cool, stoic jerk. A part of him even still looked up to Akihiko Kayaba. But whenever Kazuto spent time with both of his girlfriends, it was as if that part of him went to sleep.

Why hadn’t it gone to sleep when he had been exclusively dating Asuna? Why had he still been pretentious enough to think of the stupidest things at the wrong moments?

Perhaps it was because there was but one ultimate way. Like Shino, there was enough love inside his heart to be shared by _two_ people. It _had_ to be shared. Perhaps love was what he had felt for… No, Kazuto _didn’t_ want to go down that train of thought!

“Kirito, are you listening? Geez, this whole drive you kept asking ‘Are we there yet?’ but the second we actually _ are, _ you don’t even notice!” Shino shouted as the car came to a hard break. Several camping supplies from the back were jostled and fell on top of Kazuto. He let out a small yelp as a can of bug spray knocked him in the head. He then heard a car door open, close, then open again.

“What the… How did you manage to  _ lie down  _ while still wearing a seat belt?” Shino asked snippily. She had her hands on her hips and was looking downward at Kazuto. He picked up the bug spray off of his face and gave her a cheeky grin.

“I dunno, maybe your cat qualities are rubbing off on me,” he quipped. She rolled her eyes and leaned down to poke him in the cheek. He yelped again.

“Very funny, Kirito,” she said sarcastically, “Now help us set up camp.” She then walked around back to open the trunk of the car, leaving Kazuto to deal with the mess of supplies on top of him by himself. He let out a long sigh, curled up, and started putting everything back in their designated bags.

“Need help?” Asuna asked, having left the passenger seat to check on him. Kazuto shuddered, shocked by her presence. He hoisted the camping supply bag over his shoulder and turned to look at her.

“D-Didn’t see you there,” he said, trying to play it off, “I’m fine, though. You should go help Sinon, she’s got the harder job.” He nudged his chin in the direction of the other girl, who was walking off into the wilderness with the popup tent cradled underneath her left arm.

“She’ll be fine. She’s more outdoorsy than either of us, so I feel like I’d only slow her down,” Asuna pointed out. She then extended her arm with a smile, beckoning for him to give her the bag he was holding. He didn’t have a choice when it came to her, huh?

“Alright, but I think we should go soon. It’s so dark, I’m starting to lose sight of her,” Kazuto agreed. He handed Asuna the bag he’d been holding, then picked up the other two and hopped out of the car. He kicked the door closed, prayed that Shino remembered to lock the car when she’d trailed off, and ran off into the campgrounds.

As expected, the tent had been up with ease. By the time Kazuto and Asuna caught up with her, Shino had already found a nice clearing and opened up the contraption. She gave them a proud thumbs up before inviting them inside to drop off the bags.

“Which bag has the tarp in it?” she asked, pawing at the bag around Asuna’s shoulder. She looked down into it but pouted, finding nothing.

“The… tarp?” Kazuto asked, dumbfounded. Shino frowned.

“Every camper knows that a tarp is a necessity. It’s a multi-purpose item,” she explained, walking closer so that she could look through the bags that he was holding. “You can use it as cover from the rain. You can put it over the grass and lay down on it and then you can use it to transport whoever fell asleep while doing so. It’s big enough for a large group, too, definitely for the three of us.” She rummaged through the bag underneath his right arm.

“Multi-purpose is just a nice way to say stingy,” Kazuto teased as she switched to rummage through the bag that hung from his left arm. She scoffed and looked up at him halfway through her search.

“I’m  _ so _ sorry for being the most responsible out of the three of us,” she replied sarcastically. They stared daggers at each other until, suddenly, tiny grins creeped onto their faces. Their banter had become their love language, it seemed, and it amused them so much that simple smiles became a giggle fit. They kept on, forgetting about the tarp, and even Asuna joined in— her partners’ sweet laughter was contagious. Shino calmed down first. She wiped her eyes, teary from having laughed too much, and said,

“Really, though, I need the tarp so we can sit down outside. I know it’s not as fancy as a picnic blanket, but it’s what I had on hand.” Kazuto nodded and handed her the bag so she could finish going through it. She jammed her hand into and pulled out a large, gray tarp from the bottom of the bag. Shino then scurried out of the tent and unfolded it over the clearing. With a few shakes, it smoothed out and fell gracefully on top of the grass with a light “fwip” sound. Asuna clapped and Kazuto gave her a thumbs up.

“Thank you, thank you, but come sit down!” Shino called out to her partners. They hurried over to her and found their place on the tarp. It made a plastic rustling sound as they scooched around, but that was about the only thing traditional picnic blankets had over the tarp— it was otherwise quite comfortable.

Asuna sat in between Shino and Kazuto. It wasn’t because either of them preferred her over the other, but rather because Shino still had trouble with being physically close to men. She instinctively swatted Kazuto’s hands away whenever he got too close, even if she wanted him to be. He didn’t blame her, though, since he knew the reason why she kept her guard up; he’d seen  _ him _ with his own two eyes. Kazuto just wished that he could help Shino more; the triad had set boundaries and were slowly working on it. Whenever he felt guilty about it, he reminded himself that relationships weren’t wholly about touching.

Sometimes they were about stargazing with one’s better thirds.

“It’s kinda cloudy, but you can still see the stars,” Kazuto pointed out. He felt the cool breeze blow through his hair, past his neck and ears. It tickled, but in a good way.

“I’m just glad to be away from the sound of cars and stuff,” Shino commented, leaning on Asuna’s shoulder. She let out a relaxed sigh and rested her right hand on the older girl’s left knee.

“I wanna stay like this forever… or maybe until the sun rises,” Asuna said blissfully. She wrapped her right arm around Kazuto and leaned on him, making the three of them look like a falling row of dominos. She then held Shino’s right hand with her left.

“You’re just saying that because you want to stay up for the eclipse that we can’t even see. You said it was August twenty-first, but that’s over in America. For us, it’d be on the twenty-second,” Kazuto pointed out. That earned him a soft chuckle from Shino across the tarp.

“You got me, Kirito-kun! But what’s wrong with that?” Asuna admitted, putting on a small pout. She leaned harder into his side, trying to playfully push him. She must have exerted  _ too  _ much force, though, because Kazuto toppled down onto the tarp. Asuna fell as well, since she was holding onto his side, and she landed right on top of him. She almost dragged Shino down, too, but the younger girl managed to maintain her balance and was only disoriented a little. She stared down at her flopped over partners with a tired smile. Asuna stared at their boyfriend, checking to see if he was alright. Kazuto, however, stared straight up at the night sky.

“Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine with whatever, as long as I’m with you guys.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is gonna be a long author's note so be prepared:  
> -Web novel Sinon's birthday isn't February 8th, that's just my headcanon since she was first posted to the internet on February 8th, 2004 and the web novel timeline by 左馬さん says that her birthday could be anywhere from January 1999 to June 1999.  
> -I mentioned light novel Sinon's canon birthday (August 21st) because I love implying that the characters in SAO are aware of parallel universes. Just for funsies.  
> -The web novel things I DID keep intact were the 10 year set back (SAO starts in 2012 as opposed to 2022), the "Love me for the rest of my life!" line in the cave scene, Shino being from Tohoku, Death Gun and gabriel being extra shitty, prolly more but I am hardcore blanking rn.  
> -The title of this fic is also a web novel reference. One of the chapters of the Phantom Bullet (previously Death Gun) arc is called "To Call a Gun Death" (thanks AJ for translation help!) so I decided this fic just had to be "To Call a [noun] Life" ('cause it was originally sposed to be sinon-centric lol)  
> -I tried to characterize the web novel versions of the cast accurately but I really only know about web novel Sinon, I based Kirito off of what I've heard from Hisui and I just wrote Asuna like normal because all I really know about her is that she kills Kuradeel.  
> -The real reason i wrote Sinon as insisting to drive is because her dad died on a barely used mountainside road this is my painful headcanon for tonight <3  
> -I also always make sure to make readers hyper aware that Sinon is from the country side so I was like "what are my irls who live upstate like" and that's when i remembered my camp friend's tarp speech and decided to throw it into this fic. yes the entire speech is true yes i have carried someone who passed out on a tennis court with a tarp. dont disrespect the tarp  
> -more personal experiences... Sorry for mentioning the 2017 eclipse so much, that day is just really special to me. Shame that it wasn't visible in Japan (things I googled for this fic)  
> -More things I googled for this fic were parts of a steering wheel, weather on Mt. Dodaira august 21st 2017 at 8 pm, google maps how long does it take to drive from (web novel sinon's real exact address) to Mt. Dodaira, domino effect verb what's it called, and I also read an interview from 2018 by a japanese dude in a poly relationship it was neat!


End file.
